Here in Northern California, our spring has already begun. Manzanita
is in flower, and the almonds and wild plums are in full bloom.
Everything that's not concrete is green, greener than anything you can
imagine. Ireland green. It is the Time of Salads.

And no wild salad green is more important than miner's lettuce, Claytonia perfoliata.
I took a walk yesterday near Folsom, and within a mile I saw enough of
the plant to feed a small town. It is everywhere, so much so that no
one can see it. It's become wallpaper, an anonymous part of the green
world we're enjoying these days. I watched scores of people pass one of
the world's great salad greens without so much as a second glance.

I wonder if they just didn't recognize the plant in its natural
setting? After all, next to blackberries and wild fennel, miner's
lettuce is probably the most recognized wild edible in this part of the
country. Even dazzling urbanites seem to know it, possibly recalling
dim memories of summer camps gone by, or of a fancy Alice Waters salad
they might have enjoyed at Chez Panisse back in 1989 or something. In
gourmet circles, miner's lettuce has become commonplace, an
afterthought. It is the iceberg lettuce of wild foods.

Hank Shaw

Undeservedly so. Miner's lettuce is pleasingly crunchy,
mild-tasting, has large leaves, remains tender even when in flower, and
is so loaded with vitamins it will cure scurvy. The plant got its name
because the Gold Rush miners ate it to stave off the disease, which is
caused by a Vitamin C deficiency; they learned this trick from the
local Indians, no doubt.

According to a study in the Journal of the American Dietetic
Association, 100 grams of miner's lettuce—about the size of a decent
salad—contains a third of your daily requirement of Vitamin C, 22
percent of the Vitamin A, and 10 percent of the iron. Combine this with
stinging nettles and you have everything you need to revive your system from a winter's worth of heavy meats, dried grains, and roots.

All of these qualities impressed early explorers so much they saved the seeds of Claytonia perfoliata and brought them back to Europe to grow, first as a curiosity, then as a food plant.

Many sources say this happened in 1749, but I have never found any
reference to any original source of this date, which I think is a
transposition of the real date the plant reached Europe. According to Hortus Kewensis,
an 1811 catalog of everything growing in England's famous Kew
Gardens, the great Scots naturalist Archibald Menzies discovered
miner's lettuce on the West Coast of America in 1794, not 1749, and he brought seeds back to Kew, where it flourished.

I took a look at Menzies' journal of the expedition—he was with
George Vancouver on Vancouver's famous round-the-world voyage—and it
appears that Menzies actually found the plant along Puget Sound, in
current-day Washington, on May 7, 1792:

A little before won the Fog dispersd... we walkd along shore... In
this walk I found growing in the Crevices of a small rock about midway
between the two points a new Species of Claytonia [a small flowering
herb] & as I met with it no where else in my journeys, it must be
considerd as a rare plant in this country. I namd it Claytonia furcata & took a rough sketch of it which may be seen in my collections of Drawings.

It is not exactly clear whether this is miner's lettuce or not, but
this is Menzies's only mention of claytonia in the journals he kept on
the voyage, and there are any number of accounts published before 1820
that mark this as the plant's European provenance.

Miner's lettuce was so important as a source of Vitamin C that the
British planted it in Cuba and, later, in Australia. An early 19th-century article I found notes that miner's lettuce was already
well-established in Cuba by 1811, and that it was "spontaneously
growing" in the Botanical Gardens of Paris. By mid-century it was being
sold by seedsmen as a salad green and potherb—and was rapidly
becoming a weed in England.

This is a rare thing. Nearly all our edible household weeds are of
European origin: dandelion, plantain, most thistles, chickweed,
purslane, mallow, cat's ear, garlic mustard, shepherd's purse. For our
very own miner's lettuce to be brought back to Europe, and for it to
become a widespread edible weed, is almost unprecedented.

What's more, miner's lettuce is one of the very few foods native to
North America that we commonly eat. Think about it: How much of the
food in your pantry is native to this place? Wild rice, turkey,
cranberries, jerusalem artichokes for sure. Chiles and some squash and
beans can qualify, but they are more Central American. Let's face it,
when it comes to the salad course, miner's lettuce is the king of our
indigenous cuisine.

Why it hasn't become part of our standard "salad mix" is beyond me.
It's ridiculously easy to grow, loves moist shade, and you can buy miner's lettuce seeds pretty
much anywhere. I am growing some this spring, and, like my wild
arugula, will be happy to have this little plant colonize my yard.

Hank Shaw

So far as eating miner's lettuce is concerned, there is really no
reason to stray beyond the salad. This is how most of us enjoy it
today, and it's how the Native Americans ate the plant - although I
think I'll skip the trick performed by a few tribes that lived around
Auburn, California: They would apparently strew miner's lettuce leaves
along the highways of a particular kind of ant, which would then
excrete something acidic (formic acid, maybe?) on the leaves, flavoring
them like vinegar. Weird, eh? I think I'll stick to vinaigrette.

Normally I mix greens to create certain flavors and textures (I wrote about making a proper salad a
while back), but sometimes I prefer to eat miner's lettuce solo. You
really get to know a green when you do this, and you don't want to
dress such a salad too heavily; just a light coating is all.

I made a light mustard vinaigrette for the dressing, and added some
fresh ground black pepper and a little flake salt for texture and
crunch. The effect is tart, smooth, a little crunchy, and very "green"
tasting. Miner's lettuce is also known as winter purslane (they're both
in the portulaca family) and if you have ever eaten regular summer
purslane, you can appreciate the succulent texture of this plant.

Hank Shaw

For those of you who live anywhere from British Columbia east to the
Great Plains, you can find miner's lettuce, and its various claytonia
cousins, in shady, moist spots in spring. According to the USDA,
miner's lettuce has naturalized in a few places east of the Plains,
notably Ohio, Georgia, and New Hampshire. Pick from February to May, but
you will need to find deeper, cooler places the later you go.

The best leaves grow under trees. Miner's lettuce is perfectly fine
when in flower—unlike most spring greens—but pick before the flower
stalk gets too long. Once picked, miner's lettuce leaves will last in a
plastic bag in the fridge for three to five days without too much loss of
quality. Keep a damp paper towel in the bag to keep everything nice and
fresh.

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